


Mosaic Maker

by Prospero



Series: Protector [2]
Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blackmail and Bribery, F/M, Gen, LGBTQ Character, Makeup, Prison Breakouts, Things Don't Go Smooth, Transgender, chosen family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 07:58:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6110179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prospero/pseuds/Prospero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Of course, it doesn't go smoothly. It never goes smoothly, but this is about as non-smooth as a cracked sidewalk covered with porcupine quills and broken glass."</p>
<p>Sequel to "Glittering Shards." Featuring Simon as a transgender woman and the rest of the crew figuring it out as they go along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mosaic Maker

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a sequel to "Glittering Shards." Read that first or you will be extremely confused.
> 
> Although this fic has many transgender themes, a lot of it is just about living on Serenity and the various terrors and wonders the crew faces. No one's life revolves around just one thing.

**_Chemical (adjective)—Of or relating to chemistry or the interactions of substances as studied in chemistry._ **

Serenity's on her way to Harvest on a job when Kaylee gets curious about the crates they're transporting. She pries one open and is disconcerted when she can't identify the machine packed inside—she's Kaylee, after all, machines are her trade and her lifeblood. But Sonia sees three pointy metal legs, like a crab, and runs to get the others.

Turns out their client sells instruments of torture. Pleasant.

Mal orders them to toss it all out the airlock. Sonia says to wait a moment, then asks him and Wash to point out which machines they remember Niska owning. She sets those aside to examine later—getting several "you're gorram creepy" looks for her trouble—and the rest of it goes into the black.

Sonia discovers that several of the devices have a chemical element, usually injected in liquid form. She uses a syringe to transfer the liquids to various empty bottles, labeling each in enormous, bright red letters. To be safe, she also locks them up, since if a crew member mistook one for headache meds, the consequences would hardly bear thinking of.

Later, she finds River trying to convince Book that his brains would be safer if he cut off his hair. Her _meimei_ looks up and remarks that "you want me to help develop an immunization process against agonizing nerve stimulants. Niska is a scorpion with a teddy bear mask, but we're teddy bears with scorpion claws. Should be possible. Take a picture of his face for me."

After several days of chemical analysis, the two of them have written up a list of the drugs they'd need to counteract the influence of the more complex torture machines. It won't help against a straight-up knife or whip, but anything to even the odds. The crew hasn't had many dealings with drug runners, but most of what they want is actually legal, so Inara offers to put them in contact with an influential friend.

Sonia has made another decision during the analysis as well. So when the face of Inara's friend flashes up on the wave screen and they've exchanged pleasantries, she tells him: "We've run afoul of a crime lord, so we're in need of certain drugs to immunize us against chemical torture—I've made a list. Also, supplies for hormone therapy. I assume you know people who stock estrogen, for example."

He does, and barely bats an eye at either request.

Then it's time for another long and complex dinner conversation. Unluckily, River decides it's a good time for a history lesson. She starts expounding on the original version of hormone therapy developed on Earth-That-Was, how it made breasts grow, made skin softer, changed fat distribution. Of course, in little-sister fashion, she leaves it to Sonia to actually explain how it's changed in the five hundred or so years since. The gist of the matter is that hormones work faster than they used to, that they're a lot safer (eliminating most risk of blot clots, for example), and cheaper. Still no miracles—they can't make your voice any higher or change bone structure, and there's a minor risk of complications.

No one says anything outright derogatory, and the questions they ask are for the most part respectful. Inara and River smile, Zoe is neutral as always. But everyone else seems wary, apprehensive, on edge. Sonia knows they're likely discomfited by the notion of having to watch her body change in this particular way.

But if silence is as far towards acceptance as her crew can get right now, she'll take it.

 

**_Daredevil (adjective)—Reckless and daring. Synonyms—Intrepid, dauntless, foolhardy._ **

Ever since the truth about Miranda went to the eyes and ears of the 'verse, there's been discontent and mutterings against the Alliance nearly everywhere Serenity lands. Sonia isn't sure it'll amount to anything—all the clamor and noise doesn't necessarily equal real action—but it's making the Feds paranoid. Zoe and Mal have gotten a wave from an old war buddy of theirs asking for help retrieving a few veterans who've been snatched up and are marked for transport to a secure facility. As risky as a prison breakout is, pay has been promised, and old friends are old friends.

The encyclopedia's definition of daredevil probably has a picture of Serenity's crew under it, and that shows in the plan they devise. Well, it shows in every plan they've ever devised. The best moment for rescue is right before the actual transport—the veterans won't be shut in cells, and hopefully the Feds will be too worried about their prisoners taking advantage of the moment to think much about an attack coming from the outside. Put a few credits in the right hands to get the right doors left open and the right monitors turned off, and then it's good old-fashioned let-our-guns-do-the-talking.

Of course, it doesn't go smoothly. It never goes smoothly, but this is about as non-smooth as a cracked sidewalk covered with porcupine quills and broken glass. In retrospect, Sonia wishes she'd expressed more skepticism about the strategy, instead of just inoculating everyone against the planet's recent outbreak of Yelzu's Virus—a nasty and horribly contagious relative of Earth-That-Was smallpox.

Inara has a client, so that leaves Book, Kaylee, Wash, and Sonia to sit on the bridge, trying to pretend they're not all imagining exactly what could go wrong. For awhile there's a cheery, forced conversation about whether Jayne might buy them another crate of apples with his cut, but the rendezvous time inches by—the others are five minutes late, then ten minutes. Wash is just reaching for the com to contact them when the cargo bay doors slide open.

Book and Kaylee and Sonia bolt down the stairs to see River supporting a blood-covered and half-unconscious Jayne. She's screaming that they have to fly or they'll die, die writhing on the floor. Wash comes running out with a com in his hand, and Zoe's voice through it is ordering them to go, now, I love you, now go.

Wash yells that he can't, that he won't leave them, and then River pulls her gun and tells him to get Serenity in the air or she'll shoot him and do it herself. Sonia has never seen so much raw heartbreak in anyone's face as she does in Wash's when he gets in the pilot seat and steers the ship away.

For the first hour, all Sonia can think about is stitching up Jayne—the multiple lacerations have already brought him near death. In any hospital, they'd set three surgeons to operating on a man wounded this badly, but of course she has to do it all herself. No one on board has Jayne's blood type, so he needs a transfusion from Wash, who, being O negative, is a universal donor.

When Sonia goes to get him, he punches her in the face.

She could have ducked or blocked the blow, but she doesn't. Because she's the one who knows the safe-word, the phrase she used the first time River was triggered, that puts her to sleep. If she'd used it, her sister couldn't have forced Wash to fly away from Zoe, leaving her and Mal behind to face God knows what. But Sonia, still the logician, added the pluses and subtracted the minuses and saw seven crew members who could still be saved versus two who might be dead already, and she kept her mouth shut. And now shame and pure grief are threatening to swamp her.

They land in the shadow of a rocky cliff. Jayne's still strung out on painkillers and probably will be for some time. Kaylee is crying, huge choking sobs and tears flowing down her cheeks and soaking her coveralls. River has shrunken from steel warrior to devastated girl and is muttering, two by two, hands blue, two by two, hands blue. Book has his Bible out, whispering the words as he reads them: "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything in all creation, can separate us from the love of God." After providing the blood transfusion, Wash goes back to the bridge, and everyone knows better than to try and offer comfort.

Sonia wishes she were strung out on painkillers, but she's not. She wishes tears would come, but they don't. She'd mutter, but she has no words. She'd pray, but she has no faith. Except that's not strictly true. No god she's read of, or heard of, inspires any belief. But she does believe. She believes in _them,_ in those two soldiers who lost a war but kept fighting. When you can't run, you crawl, they say, and when you can't do that...

Leaving Book with instructions to call her if Jayne gets worse, Sonia goes to the kitchen. Kaylee's in one chair, River's in another. She kneels down to look straight in her _meimei's_ face, and asks if there is any chance Mal and Zoe are still alive.

River says yes.

When you can't run, you crawl, and when you can't do that, you find someone to carry you. Mal and Zoe have carried her, since she landed on their ship with a broken River and next to zero knowledge of how border life worked. Now, Sonia is going to carry them, if it kills her. Which it very well might.

"We're getting them back."

 

**_Trust (noun)—Firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. Synonyms—Belief, confidence, faith._ **

Imagine going to take a test, which if you fail, your eyes will be put out with a red-hot iron. Then imagine you are handed a grav thrust, a fireplace poker, some coolant gel, and a bag of lemons, and informed that your test is to find a cure for leukemia and meningitis, using only those tools. Oh, and you have ten minutes. Go.

That's how Sonia Tam feels right now. No plan. No data. Only her self-appointed status as protector.

What she develops first is less a plan than a list of information she'll need in order to formulate one. Obviously the premium bit of data is where Mal and Zoe are now, and she expects this will be the most difficult thing to find out. As it happens, she's wrong. Inara vanishes into her shuttle and returns two hours later to announce they've been taken to Penal Moon 32 in the White Sun system, and are doing hard labor in Colony 67. Jayne, incredulous, asks if she's gone and blackmailed some official who don't want his politics messed up. Inara replies that yes, there's an delicate election in his constituency and he'd prefer his bedroom tastes to remain private, but that they'll have to work fast now, in case he loses his nerve and alerts the Feds.

Sonia then sits down with Book and instructs him to tell her everything, absolutely everything, that he knows about how penal moons operate. As such, she spends hours listening to descriptions of key cards for overseers, identification for supply ships, techniques to break troublesome prisoners—a flood of data. It's hard to keep her courage in the face of such daunting facts, especially when Book tells her frankly that of the successful prison outbreaks in the last decade, the vast majority of them ended in the former prisoners dying later. The Alliance apparently has an unfortunate practice of surgically inserting small detonators directly next to the spines of convicts. If anyone escapes, the detonators can be set off from afar and acid destroys vital nerves.

Out of all the information, Sonia constructs eight plans, then picks the best. It's horribly dangerous, but there's approximately sixty percent chance of it working, up from the next best, where there is forty percent.

At first she hopes River might pull some solution out of thin air, but River's true genius is more intuitive than analytic. Besides, since the day of disaster she's acted lost, muttering about peacock feathers and how you can't play chess without a king to protect, and clinging to Sonia in a way she hasn't for almost a year. And as Sonia works out their strategy she catches the rest of the crew watching her with a frightening degree of faith, faith that she'll somehow get them out of this.

Even Wash, who sleeps in an empty bunk every night now, even Book and Inara, who _know_ how long the odds are, even Jayne, who never liked her and still doesn't, even Kaylee, who clearly feels stripped of her two greatest protectors—they believe in her. Sonia wonders if it's only because she's their doctor, if she inspires a kind of unconscious trust because she can fix their bodies. Trust that goes to her in the power vacuum that now exists on Serenity, trust they'd generally have given their captain, or to their first mate in his absence. It frightens her, because she's not Mal, she can't be the anchor, the mosaic maker, that he's always been.

But everything she has in the 'verse is or was on Serenity, and though she sometimes wonders if she's going completely mad, she knows she'll never give up as long as Zoe and Mal are still alive.

Sonia doesn't know this and never will, but the doctor who tried to shape River into glory's image also speculated that she was insane, due to the life she gave up for her sister. And the Operative to which he spoke said no, it wasn't madness, it was something a good deal more dangerous.

Love.

 

**_Refuge (noun)—A condition of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble. Synonyms—Shelter, asylum, sanctuary._ **

There are three working wave screens on Serenity. One is on the bridge, and primarily used for jobs. The second is in Inara's shuttle, so she can speak to her clients. The other shuttle and the bunks also have them, but the only one that still works is in Mal's.

It's the bridge screen that Sonia utilizes at first. Talking at her lower, masculine pitch is positively odd, and she keeps almost slipping, but the representatives of the underground movement she's now re-contacted only knew her as Simon Tam, and they're suspicious enough as it is. The paranoia is more a habit than because they think she'll betray them—after all, the plan to free River took months to form and they got to know her fairly well—but rebels don't survive by letting their guard down.

What Sonia wants from them is simple, but still risky and expensive and vital to the rest of her plan. It also requires just the right moment, so even when Serenity's crew is ready, they have to wait until the underground workers find their opening. This could happen any time, and the tension, plus the worry that they'll run out of coin, plus the fear that if they stay in orbit near the penal moons too long someone will notice, is driving everyone a touch  _kuang-zhe de,_ though they try not to show it.

Book prays. Kaylee checks every part in the engine room twice over. Jayne, still under orders not to strain himself by weight-lifting, oils his guns. River invents some kind of game that involves using her colored pencils to sketch skeletons wearing bonnets and slinky dresses. And Sonia? Well, she tries to organize the infirmary, but keeps dashing up to check for messages. Nights are awful—she can't rest for fear she'll miss a wave.

She actually considers dragging a blanket and pillow up to the bridge and sleeping there, but the bridge is becoming Wash's refuge—it seems he can't stand his empty bunk. And though Inara would no doubt welcome her, the Companion needs a refuge of her own. They all do. So Sonia just starts sleeping in Mal's bunk.

Why not? It has a wave screen.

 

**_Breakout (noun)—A forcible escape, typically from prison._ **

Three months and four days after the disastrous breakout attempt, Serenity's crew gets the message that the underground workers have spotted an opportunity, and the plan gears up into motion so fast that no one has time for doubts or prayers or even much rational thought. Before she knows it, Sonia is curled up in a seven by three foot metal compartment, blackness pressing on her eyes, fervently wishing she had a gun. An impossible wish—the checkpoint they'll have to pass through has excellent firearm sensors.

Truthfully, that's the only reason she and River can be smuggled in at all. If the Feds didn't trust that their sensors would pick up trouble, they'd be far more careful about what, or who, might be hiding in a shuttle that's supposedly transporting food to the colony. As it is, any organic matter is allowed to pass undisturbed, and human bodies are organic matter. Besides, most authorities are more concerned with keeping prisoners from getting out, than they are with unarmed people getting in.

It's highly ironic that those of Serenity's crew who really want to be part of the actual rescue aren't the ones who are here. Wash demanded that he be the one to fly the shuttle, but he couldn't—he's the only person who can do the tricky maneuvering required if they need to make a fast getaway on Serenity. And Sonia flatly refused to let anyone take such a large risk if their presence wouldn't truly be of much help. Since guns won't be allowed in, and because there are too many guards to be defeated if it comes to a real fight, that eliminates Book and Jayne, though both of them are itching for action. Inara is piloting, Sonia is in the compartment, and River is masquerading as a mechanic with Kaylee's coaching. All of them would vastly prefer to be back on Serenity, but the plan calls for psychic, surgeon, and makeup mistress, so here they are.

Almost before she knows it, she's out of the shuttle. Everything is basically a blur until their guide, an infiltrator, drops her at the prison hospital door, ready to play the part of substitute doctor. One of the resident doctors has just "gotten sick" (no doubt brought on by the credits recently transferred to his account and the blackmail on top of that) and needs a replacement. A replacement that, with wrangling and system hacking and a bit of bribery, they've arranged to be her.

Sonia is promptly calmed by the medical atmosphere, though she shouldn't be. The list of crimes against humanity at this so-called hospital is longer than Jayne's range with a sniper rifle. Dozens of experiments on prisoners without any kind of consent—injecting them with possibly-toxic compounds, forcing them to electrocute each other to measure the effects on their psyche, draining their blood and removing their organs for Core hospitals. But hospitals are Sonia's home ground, and truly it's an advantage she's not nervous.

A small surgery, she announces, waving the medical papers Book helped her forge in Serenity's kitchen. Fifty percent chance of fatality, but it's all for the advancement of science, and she'll send the bodies off-world for analysis in any case. Yes, she'd like to look at the files and choose, the experiment requires specific characteristics. Yes, these two will do very nicely.

She almost can't believe they fall for it. But two hours—two wrenching, nightmarish, white-knuckled hours later—an intern calls that her "subjects" have been anesthetized and prepared for surgery. Sonia's calm nearly cracks when she sees Mal and Zoe unconscious on the operating tables. The three months of hard labor and mistreatment have turned them into malnourished, exhausted skeletons.

When the room is clear, she takes a breath. Those detonators embedded in their spines have to be removed, without setting them off and without damaging their nerves, and she has to manage the surgery unassisted. Twice. On patients from which she has precisely no emotional distance.

_Top three percent. I can do this._

 

**_Contagious (adjective)—Of a disease, spread from one person or organism to another by direct or indirect contact. Synonyms—Infectious, transmittable._ **

The official checking the medical shuttle on its way out of the penal moon's orbit is clearly nettled. Yes, he has to view the corpses, it's in regulations, doctors have tried to smuggle live prisoners out in the past so he needs to make sure these are dead, so stop shoving those papers in my face and—

_He chu-sheng za-jiao de zang-huo!_ Get them out of here, now! Why didn't you say they died of Yelzu's Virus? You're probably all infected with it! Fly this gorram shuttle out of the quadrant and don't come back!

(Later, to a skeptical colleague: No, I didn't check for cardiac-suspending drugs. That requires getting a blood sample. Don't you know what Yelzu's Virus does to a person? Not interested in dying for a couple of convicts, thanks.

And even later, to an investigating agent: Oh, come on. Even the best surgeon on Osiris couldn't remove the detonators so fast. And what do you mean, any talented Companion could fake Yelzu's with wax and makeup powder?)

 

**_Gratitude (noun)—The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. Synonyms—Gratefulness, recognition, acknowledgement._ **

Book has informed Mal and Zoe—mostly Mal, because Zoe has sense—that if they try to get up before the doctor says it's alright, he'll damage their kneecaps and then read them biblical passages on leprosy. Sonia isn't planning on saying it's alright anytime soon, because it takes time to recover from delicate spinal surgery, and if she lets them up, there _will_ be overexertion. Serenity's crew seems to add the addendum "if you feel like it" to the end of most medical advice.

Also because Mal is just a bit angry at her. Well, perhaps more than just a bit. Perhaps more than angry. Possibly incensed. Livid. Fit to be tied, up in arms, seeing all kinds of red. He's repeatedly threatened to choke her to death, and she'd like to postpone that, thank you.

It seems the captain did not want his crew imperiled. He wanted them far away, on the other side of the 'verse from penal moons and Feds and all such dangers, _not_ mounting utterly outrageous rescue attempts. (Actually, he didn't say utterly outrageous, he said several offensive things that made Inara threaten to scrub his mouth with soap.) And even though Wash was never going to abandon his wife and Inara did the initial blackmailing and Book gave out the info and River is the resident genius, apparently Sonia gets all the blame, because:

  1. You came up with the plan, which your darling sister just told me had a thirty-five percent chance of getting you all arrested. And makeup? You had better be joking. Makeup was supposed to fool 'em into thinking we had Yelzu's Virus?
  2. You should've talked everyone out of this, because you're supposed to be sharp up there in the brainpan, sharp enough to know how crazy it was and sharp enough to realize what would happen to, say, a girl like Kaylee if she landed on a penal moon.
  3. None of 'em would've dared to try it, they've never broken no one out of anywhere before, but you did, with River, and you're so gorram trustworthy that of _course_ they'll go along with it, so don't put blame on them, 'cause I know whose fault it is.



This was all yelled very loudly while Sonia attempted to adjust Mal's neck brace without having her fingers broken or similar consequences. Her responses included:

  1. River didn't say thirty-five percent to me, she said twenty percent. Don't bite my thumb off! And the makeup worked, didn't it?
  2. I told everyone, including Kaylee, all the risks, and they made their own decisions. Stop that! Human bites get infected!
  3. Wonderful. Now I have to get disinfectant—wait. Did you just call me trustworthy? Hey! Don't move or you'll have permanent nerve damage!



Even Book's threats of not only leprosy but pillars of salt, Jayne's groans that clearly indicate he'd like Mal to cut it out already, and Inara's reminders that he and Zoe might be dead if they hadn't rescued them, aren't enough to stop the yelling. But River sashays in one day and informs Mal that if he doesn't refrain she will "go talk to the Christmas tree. Pretty Christmas tree with glittery tinsel and candy canes and bright shiny presents. Tell the Christmas tree what you look like with your clothes off."

Zoe's lips twitch, just once. Mal shuts up after that. Mostly.

Sonia doesn't particularly care about appreciation anyway. Like the rest of them, she wanted her friends back, wanted Serenity to keep flying. Now that she has her wish, even the dullest moments seem splendid. Having to wash nine plates and nine pairs of chopsticks instead of seven on her night for dishes. Running up to the bridge only to encounter Wash and Zoe kissing enthusiastically, and trying to scrub the vision off her eyes. Landing hard on the metal grating floor while Mal teaches her to fight, dodging and weaving and trying not to get any more bruised. And eventually, after a knife fight...

  1. You got to hold the blade tighter so I can't knock it out of your hand. Ain't no scalpel.
  2. Also, keep your gorram guard up. You keep slipping.
  3. Oh, yeah, and about that plan you came up with, to get Zoe and me free—I owe you for that. Thank you.



 

**_Ornament (verb)—To make more attractive by adding decoration. Synonyms—Adorn, embellish._ **

Despite Badger's very fine hat, there are a lot of other rodents he resembles much more than his namesake, in Sonia's opinion. Rat. Weasel. Sewer rat. Skunk. Rat with plague-ridden fleas. None of them take kindly to the man after he ordered his goons to keep them on Serenity so they couldn't rescue Mal from himself on the sword fighting field, but apparently he has a job for them. In order that Sonia not accidentally mention her thoughts on Badger's rodent status, she takes herself away as soon as he shows up in the cargo bay.

It's just their luck that said job involves another fancy party.

At least Inara won't be there—her new Persephone client wants her all to himself in the most literal sense that evening. And at least they're not supposed to act respectably this time. Respectably enough to be admitted, yes, but once inside, the idea is to cause a diversion. The bigger and messier the better, so aforementioned goons can grab a few priceless antiques. It's the getting admitted part that will be the issue. Badger's gotten them invites, but if they don't look appropriately moneyed, some excuse will likely be made to keep them out. Kaylee's frilly pink dress, as charming as it looks on her, won't pass muster.

So Inara, newly armed with the coin a vexed Badger handed over for the purpose, is taking them clothes shopping. River, Mal, and Zoe are Team Diversion, so they actually _need_ outfits, but Wash is going because he will never miss the chance to watch his deadly autumn flower try on fancy anything, and Kaylee is going because she was promised a new dress on her birthday by Inara, and Sonia is going because her brat of a sister is threatening all kinds of direness if she doesn't.

Said brat of a sister has also decided this whole excursion is less an aggravating duty of the job than it is an excuse to have "girl time" and that they all need to look "like birds of paradise with diamond eyes" before they step off Serenity. River can be very persuasive when she wants, and so Inara's shuttle now contains many, many open containers of face powder and foundation and lipstick and kohl and mascara, plus all kinds of hair ornaments. Kaylee has dangling curls put up with emerald pins and is bouncing with excitement. Zoe has fine gold paint lining her eyes and an amused-but-tolerant expression. And River, with audacious red lipstick she chose herself, is sitting on Sonia to keep her from running off.

Yes, she's curious what she'd look like with makeup on. Deeply so. But the whole giggle-and-glitter-and-makeover atmosphere is getting to her. She's wishing for a wound to stitch. A syringe to inject. Or even a brawling practice session. Anything, really. But River, as usual, prevails, and Sonia finds herself being painted and powdered and combed and scrutinized... _Ren-ci de Fozu. Please just get me out of this alive._ It takes forever, but finally everyone pronounces themselves satisfied and Kaylee pulls her over to Inara's mirror.

She smiles.

The difference isn't radical, which is a relief in a way. She doesn't want to look in the mirror and see a complete stranger's face. Nobody's going to think she was born with a woman's body—not that they would anyway, the hormones haven't yet wrought change that's visible when covered up by multiple layers of shirt and vest and jacket—but it's closer to how Sonia thinks of herself, closer to the elegance she's practiced in her movements and voice for so long.

And the style Inara's done with her hair—a kind of twist with a comb and curls dangling down and a few peacock feathers—is _amazing._

Mal is shouting at them to get the hell down here so they can finish this lunatic shopping tangle, and Jayne starts to complain about how slow they are (even though he's not actually going) until he sees Sonia and drops the weight he's lifting in utter shock. Book, who's spotting him, grabs it and makes some gallant comment about how very pretty everyone looks, though of course it's all just "to gild refinéd gold, to paint the lily" etc. River immediately begins expostulating on how _King John,_ the source of the quote, while not the worst play in the canon, gives Shakespeare's histories a bad name, and starts analyzing its major themes.

Wash's response is less words than a garbled string of syllables with Zoe's name in there at least three times. Jayne shakes his head as if he has water in his ears, then demands if Sonia is seriously going to walk around like that, made up like a woman and all. Mal rolls his eyes and tells Jayne that she walks around like a woman every day, paint or not, ain't you noticed, and we've got Badger's coin to waste, so everyone hurry up.

As much as a small part of Sonia appreciates Kaylee and River and Inara exclaiming over how lovely she looks, she honestly prefers Wash being distracted by his wife, Book's all-inclusive compliment, Mal's casual acceptance. She doesn't want to be some kind of show. She just wants to be Dr. Sonia Tam, who likes a few pretty things, yes, but is at her best when treating laser burns and extracting bullets and giving vaccines.

Inara shows her a few ways to do her own makeup and hair, and after a few weeks of the new styles appearing daily, she has her wish. Serenity's crew doesn't notice anymore, not even Jayne. They just yell at her for headache meds and chat with her about engine parts and guns and the job and try to cheat her at cards so they won't have to clean the septic system.

She grins, and cheats right back.

 

**_Love (noun)—An intense feeling of deep affection. Synonyms—Devotion, warmth, tenderness._ **

Sonia's in the infirmary a few months later as they fly through the black, adjusting the formula with which she and River came up to counteract the influence of Niska's torture machines, when Zoe comes in and declares she needs a physical. It's unexpected, seeing as she got an examination to confirm her non-injured status just three days ago when a complicated (read: dangerous) job was completed. Concerned, Sonia asks if she suspects a medical problem.

Zoe says no, but she thinks she might be pregnant.

She is. Serenity explodes. Almost literally.

Wash is kissing her approximately every five seconds and already planning the exact dinosaurs he'll buy next time they're dirtside, because even his collection is not yet fit for their child-to-be. Kaylee is squealing with delight loudly enough to counteract the notion that there's no sound in space. Mal appears exactly as if he's been hit on the back of the head with a flying wrench and isn't past the shock stage yet. River (who knew already) is reciting long strings of poetry by an Earth-That-Was author named Henry Vaughan. Book is clapping both parents-to-be on the shoulder and can't seem to remove the smile from his face. Jayne dropped his weight again upon hearing the news. Inara is applauding, dancing, laughing like a little girl.

And Sonia is panicking. Inwardly.

What if she can't find the right drugs for prenatal care the next planet they land on? Sometimes the medical supplies are so rudimentary. What if there are complications with the pregnancy? It's not as if she's an obstetrician/gynecologist by specialty. What if Zoe has to go out on a job, there's trouble, and she ends up losing the child? It would be devastating.

But then she remembers River's birth, how stunned and awed her ten-year-old self was at watching the tiny baby with the huge wondering eyes take her first breath and begin to cry. And knows there are some things logic doesn't quite explain, and that heroic, messy, absurd love is one of them. The love she knows each member of the crew already has for Zoe and Wash's child, even though it's smaller than a blueberry at the moment.

And then she shows her own love in Dr. Tam-fashion—she begins making a list of the prenatal drugs and vitamin supplements they'll need to pick up for Zoe at their next stop.


End file.
